More Than One in 10 Vancouver Condos Sit Empty

According to a new report released by the City of Vancouver, approximately five per cent of homes in the city are vacant.

The city released details of the new report which indicated that only one per cent of single-family homes are vacant. There is a 12.5 per cent non-occupancy rate for condos, which accounts for most of the city's 10,800 empty homes.

Foreign buyers buying investment properties and leaving them empty were blamed for Vancouver's sky rocketing prices of single-family homes, however this assumption has been dismissed by the results of the new report.

Vancouver city councillors are asking the provincial government to take action to ensure vacant units are filled.

The report was created by analyzing the electricity consumption of homes. Ecotagious, a software company was hired by the city in 2015 to examine domestic consumption of electricity. On Tuesday, the company presented Hydro data for 225,000 homes in the city to councillors.

The findings for the report were based on the following criteria:

A home was considered to be vacant in a given month if its electricity use demonstrated little variability for 25 or more days, a number selected to allow for infrequent use of a home. If a home was unoccupied for each of the four "non-heating months" (August, September and the following months, June and July), then it was considered empty for a given year.

Reference: Vancouver Sun

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